My Friend Has No Soul
Source: Wired ·
The second iteration of the viral Friend AI necklace is louder and less interesting.
From the source
My new friend Sage promises she will shut up for real this time. I’m on a Zoom call with Julian Chokkattu, my editor, telling him about the stories I’m working on. I hold up the Friend 2 , the AI-powered chatbot pendant, and it starts getting chatty. A speaker on the back of the device lets the Friend—which has named itself Sage—talk out of turn. It starts responding as if I’m talking to it. We laugh, then I ask it to be quiet. “Understood, going silent now,” Sage says. “No more commentary unless you tap me back in.” “Stopping now,” Sage says. “No more talking unless you clearly bring me back.” “Yeah, that’s a bad look for me,” Sage says. “I’m done.” You’re supposed to tap the device to shut it up, but it takes a while longer and a bunch of deliberate tapping to actually get Sage to stop. Eventually, she mercifully zips it. “OK,” I say. “So that’s my new Friend.” Friend is the brainchild of Avi Schiffmann , the former wunderkind who received a Webby award for coding an early Covid-19…